When I was a young man I would often wonder why there was so many buttons on a typical TV remote. I would see a plastic block in my hand with many rubber buttons covering it. There seemed to be a button for everything. A button for the volume, a button to mute the TV even a button to make the screen less colourful.
There was one button that blew my mind. It was the TXT button. When I pressed the TXT button, the Teletext slate would appear. You could use the TV as a news paper. For me it only really worked with the BBC although I remember some channels would have a basic one. I loved the Teletext button and I loved the idea that a digital newspaper was hidden in the TV signal and it was free. I loved the crude blocky appearance of the Teletext and I loved to read it. I am the only person I know of that would love to read TV text as a kid. In different peoples homes the Teletext button looked different. On some people's remotes the teletext button was an icon of script or sometimes it was just the letter T.
Now there are more slates in our digital freeview TVs, there is a thing called the EPG (electronic program guide) , it is like a TV guide on the TV.
And there is subtitles. For me that is very useful because when I have guests I find they talk over the TV, with subtitles I can read what they are saying on the TV.
